English 187A-2 - Fall, 2017

Topics in Literature & Media

Topic: Electronic Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Boluk, Stephanie
CRN: 62687
Time: TR 1:40-3:00; W 12:10-3
Location: 308 Voorhies

Description

The goal of this class is to chart an emerging field of digital poetics which
take advantage of both the affordances and constraints of computational media.
We will discuss the institutional authorities, historical genealogies,
theoretical interests, critical audiences, and market values that have produced
this constellation of digital-born writing practices on both page and screen.
From Anne-Marie Uribe’s kinetic poetry to Ramsey Nasser’s programming language
alb, works examined will potentially include net art, hypertext fiction,
generative poetry, esoteric software, alternate reality games, interactive
fiction, and videogames. Our examination will be accompanied by theories of
media and computation (e.g., Bush, Turing, McLuhan, Hayles, Hansen, etc.) and we
will also look at some literary and artistic precedents (e.g., Tzara, Burroughs,
Borges, Perec, Queneau, etc). Participants in the seminar will be asked to
engage in close analysis of media objects as well as produce some of their own
electronic literature.

Grading

TBD